Mercedes SLS powers into a third dimension on the Isle of White

A day at the races: A 3D short film is paving the way for more shows and sports to be filmed in the format, not just big-budget movies.

Fast-track to the future: The 3D brainchild of Jeremy Hart and PeteWoods (right) was shot on the Isle of Man TT course

Last December, executive producer Jeremy Hart made a film with chat show host Jay Leno on a secret Hollywood race track once used by the likes of Steve McQueen . In the film, The Fast And The Famous, Leno drove a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG supercar and 6million people tuned in.

For the British sequel, Hart got permission to take the SLS to a specially closed off section of the legendary Isle of Man TT motorcycle course, to be driven by ex-F1 driver and BBC pundit David Coulthard and filmed in 3D.

‘Getting the road closed was the easy bit. It was the 3D challenges that were enormous,’ says Hart.

‘We needed the very best expertise we could find in the field, both technically and creatively. Then we needed a pursuit camera vehicle that could cope with the very high speeds Coulthard would reach, not to mention a helicopter with technology to handle 3D camera gear.

‘Those disciplines don’t all exist in any one company, so we set about creating a bespoke, one-off crew to achieve the near-impossible.’

A crew of 72 people was assembled from Britain’s growing crop of 3D experts, including technicians, onboard camera specialists, boom operators, stunt drivers and helicopter camera specialists, and the team set off for the Isle of Man.

Filming in 3D requires two cameras to replicate human vision. Move the camera’s further apart or closer together and you exaggerate or lessen the 3D effect. So far, this has been limited to Hollywood blockbusters and big-money sports.

‘We were going to be producing a 3D film at speeds and in a time frame nobody else has attempted,’ says Hart. ‘Firstly the car would reach 162mph and we’d be shooting ten minutes of footage in just six hours – this is the amount of time we could persuade islanders to go without their main road.’

For the shoot to work in 3D, speed was essential. Director of photography Geoff Boyle explains: ‘With 2D, you can cheat the sensation of speed with long lenses or blurred backgrounds. There are all sorts of techniques you can use but none of them works in 3D. It just looks like a cardboard cutout moving in front of the blurred background, very Captain Pugwash and just really, really wrong.

‘The only thing that works very well with cars in 3D is wide lenses. With wide lenses, though, the background appears to move slowly so the only way to get an impression of speed is to go bloody fast.’

With Coulthard running the car at well over 100mph and with the powerful camera car tracking his every move, the crew got heart-stoppingly close to the action. To get the best out of 3D filming, it’s best if both subject and camera are moving so there were plenty of shots where the camera moved around the car at colossal speeds.

Perhaps the most dramatic images were of Coulthard chasing another SLS with a 3D rig mounted on its boot. Veteran rally master Robbie Head drove the camera car and Coulthard’s tremendous skill meant he could race up behind and hold station just inches from the lens.

‘Everyone I talked to said, “you can’t do this with a 3D camera”,’ says Boyle. ‘Well, we’ve done it.’

The result is a 3D film like no other, with a visual impact that puts you right at the heart of the action. Boyle reckons once the size and expense of the equipment comes down, 3D will be as common as HD.

The possibilities are endless and the crew are now applying extreme 3D to previously challenging areas such as planes, powerboats and motorsport. At least one F1 team is looking at using the technology with its cars – remember the dramatic footage of Mark Webber’s Red Bull car somersaulting through the air at the Valencia Grand Prix? Now imagine that in 3D.